Veteran journalist Christiane Amanpour was named on Thursday to anchor the ABC News' Sunday morning program "This Week" starting in August, after 27 years as an international correspondent for CNN.

Amanpour, 52, was hired to replace George Stephanopoulos, the former White House aide who became the new anchor of ABC's weekday breakfast-hour show "Good Morning America" in December.

ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper will serve as the regular, interim anchor for "This Week" until the debut of Amanpour in August, the Walt Disney Co-owned network said.

ABC News President David Westin said the network would capitalize on Amanpour's background as a foreign-based reporter to bring a more global perspective to "This Week," a talk show that has tended to focus on U.S. newsmakers and politics.

Westin said Amanpour also would appear on other ABC News programs "to provide international analysis on issues of the day" and to anchor prime-time documentaries on global subjects.

The London-born journalist, whose father is Iranian and mother is British, built her career reporting for CNN from some of the world's most troubled and conflict-ridden regions, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Rwanda and the Balkans.

One of few remaining stars from CNN's early days, Amanpour "was the embodiment" of its pioneering reputation for delivering breaking news around the clock from far-flung corners of the world, said Andrew Tyndall, an independent news media analyst.

She married U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin in 1998.

Amanpour also is known to commercial network news audiences as an occasional contributor to the weekly CBS News magazine "60 Minutes."

Her departure from CNN after 27 years comes at a troubled time for Time Warner Inc's cable network, whose ratings are in a slump, and for ABC News, which recently undertook a reorganization involving one of its biggest cutbacks in years.

She is set to join ABC after "This Week" had managed last year to almost catch up with the No. 1 Sunday morning talk show, NBC's "Meet the Press," hosted by David Gregory, only to slide back this season to No. 3 in viewership behind CBS's "Face the Nation," starring Bob Schieffer.

This season, "This Week" has averaged about 2.7 million viewers weekly, trailing "Face the Nation" by just 90,000 people, while "Meet the Press" leads with 3.3 million a week, according to audience tracker Nielsen Co.

Stephanopoulos left "This Week" to replace Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" after she took over as anchor of ABC's flagship evening newscast, "World News," when Charles Gibson retired.

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